New Balls, Please

Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and the Williams sisters might dominate tennis headlines, but the men’s and women’s tennis tours have hundreds of worthy competitors. From the players’ lounge at this year’s U.S. Open, in New York City, VF.com invited title seekers from the tournament’s field of 384 singles players—and contenders in doubles and wheelchair draw too—to share the spotlight.

When world No. 1 player Serena Williams dropped out of this year’s U.S. Open because of a foot injury, Wozniacki became the youngest No. 1 seed in draw since Maria Sharapova, in 2005. But if statistics hold true, Wozniacki has an uphill battle to win the trophy: only 18 U.S. Open No. 1 seeds have won the tournament since 1968. If anyone can challenge that statistic, though, it’s Wozniacki. Since the start of 2008, Wozniacki has won not only 10 singles titles, which is more than any W.T.A. player, but also the most matches, period. Plus, if she wins the tournament, she’ll overtake Williams for the No. 1 ranking of the women’s tour.

Ferrer, who is often refereed to in current tour literature as the “No. 2 Spaniard (behind Nadal)”—not a bad label!—is one of only 15 men in the U.S. Open’s main draw to have played in each of the last 20 majors. He is glad to be back in New York. “I like the city,” he says. “I like the people.”

The key to the 2010 French Open runner-up’s success at this year’s U.S. Open? Winning the first set. When she does, her opponent is pretty much screwed: so far this year, Stosur has a 28-to-1 record this season of winning the match when she’s up a set. And watch out for her serve. With 229 aces in her back pocket this year, she’s one of two players in the main draw to have hit 200 or more service winners.

“In the end, we are all entertainers,” Petkovic says of being an athlete. “We are there to entertain. People remember you for the emotions.” The Bosnian, who is making her second U.S. Open main-draw appearance, says her most memorable Flushing Meadows moment occurred when she was a junior. “I was 14 or 15,” she remembers. “It had rained for five days, and I played my match at midnight against an American. Everyone was cheering against me.”

The teenager from Marietta, Georgia, became America’s sweetheart during the U.S. Open last summer when she knocked out four Russians to reach the tournament’s quarterfinals, where she fell to Caroline Wozniacki. This year, she got to kick off the tournament with the first match on tennis’s biggest stage. “It’s a real honor to get to start the U.S. Open off on Ashe, first match,” she said. “I thought it was pretty cool. I didn’t expect that.” She won that match, but fell in the second round to No. 29 seed Alona Bondarenko.

The Lithuanian, who won the U.S. Open junior boys’ singles championship in 2007, is one of eight former U.S. Open boys’ title-holders in this year’s singles main draw. Since the junior tournament began, in 1973, only Stefan Edberg and Andy Roddick have gone on to win both the boys’ and men’s singles tournaments—a feat even Roger Federer didn’t accomplish (he was runner-up at the juniors in 1998). Berankis’s take on making his main-draw debut: “It’s good!”

After mostly first-and-second round exits from Grand Slam tournaments her first couple of years on the tour, the Russian has steadily been digging her way deeper into the bracket: this summer, she reached the quarterfinal of the Australian Open and the fourth round of Wimbledon. After the grass-court season, she was able to hold off on traveling for a little while. “I got to go home for three weeks after Wimbledon,” she says.

Gulbis, the only Latvian in the tournament, had a breakout season in 2008, when he advanced to the quarterfinals at the French Open. “I like playing in New York,” Gulbis says. “And playing in Los Angeles. I liked Las Vegas—until they canceled the tournament.”

The world No. 1 doubles player, who has won doubles titles at the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, and the Australian Open, is the oldest player ever to hold a No. 1 in singles or doubles. This year, which marks Huber’s 14th U.S. Open, she’ll be playing women’s doubles with Nadia Petrova and mixed doubles with Bob Bryan. The best part about being back in New York City? “It’s got to be the lights,” Huber says. “The lights in the city and the lights in the stadium.”

Vergeer hasn’t lost a singles match since 2003—that’s 390 consecutive victories. “In America, everyone is obsessed with statistics,” Vergeer says. “In Holland, no one cares!” Vergeer, who became a paraplegic when she was eight years old after a surgery accident, is one of the world’s 30,000 or so wheelchair-tennis players. “Sports were part of what I had to go through for rehab, and so it became an escape in the beginning—something I could have fun with,” says Vergeer, who has been playing since she was 12. At a national tournament when she was a teenager, a coach came up to Vergeer and said she had talent. “When someone says that, it gives you such motivation after you have been continually told that you can’t do something,” Vergeer says.

The 2006 Australian Open runner-up, who spent much of last year reviving his career after injuries threw him into relative anonymity, stunned the tennis world when he beat Rafael Nadal in Cincinnati two weeks before the U.S. Open. Although he lost in the first round at the U.S. Open, his charm will be talked about throughout the tournament: for his match in Louis Armstrong. But the loss doesn’t take away from Baghdatis’s charm: for his match in Louis Armstrong Stadium, the Cyprus native wore a shirt and shorts that he had purchased himself—he even had his mom sew his country’s emblems on his clothes. “I have no sponsor,” he said, “so I just want to put my country.”

“When I was growing up, I would dream of walking out on Ashe,” Mattek-Sands says. She got her chance in 2002, when, as a 17-year-old, she played No. 3 seed Jennifer Capriati under the lights in the tournament’s first round. She lost 6-0, 6-0, but the experience didn’t scar her. The Minnesota native’s favorite thing about the U.S. Open? “Night matches,” she says. “And rowdy fans.”

“We are best friends on the tour,” says Dulko of her doubles partner Pennetta. “It’s fun to play with a friend.” Although the vivacious pair like to clown around on the court—“We are never serious!” Pennetta laughs—they have very serious credentials: not only are they the No. 1 doubles seed going into the U.S. Open, but Pennetta, the No. 19 singles seed, has won the most matches on the tour this year, ahead of No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki.

Andy Roddick, who won the U.S. Open in 2003, was the last American man to take home a Grand Slam trophy. Twenty-seven majors have gone by since Roddick’s win—the longest gap between Grand Slam titles for American men since the Open era started, in 1968. But two young guys on the tour are poised to break the spell. One of them is Querrey. (The other is Querrey’s friend John Isner, who, after his 11-hour-and-five-minute Wimbledon match, certainly has a thing for shattering records.) The Californian’s favorite part about the U.S. Open? “Being an American, you usually get to play on one of the big three courts,” Querrey says. “Everyone cheers for you.”

“The best part is the energy of the city,” Zvonareva says of competing in the U.S. Open, where she is one of seven players in the singles field to have contested a Grand Slam final. (She lost to Serena Williams in this year’s Wimbledon final.)

Fognini has a thing for upsets. In the second round of this year’s French Open, the counter-puncher defeated the tournament’s No. 13 seed, Gael Monfils, coming from two sets down to win the match. Then, in the first round of Wimbledon this year, Fognini sent Fernando Verdasco packing when he came from behind to beat the grass-court tournament’s eighth seed in four sets. But Verdasco got his revenge in the first round of the U.S. Open, beating Fognini in five sets.

No dancing on the tables when she’s out on the town in New York City? “I like to stay injury-free,” joked the former world No. 1—one of six former world No. 1’s in this year’s U.S. Open field. Ivanovic, who won the French Open in 2008, is the first Serbian—male or female—to have rallied to a Grand Slam title.

Among Rezai’s credentials—she’s one of 10 players to have eclipsed the $1 million mark for year-to-date prize money; she won two singles titles in 2010—is the fact that she has one of the best heads of hair on the tour. And she’s also a fashionista. “I play with all of my jewelry,” she said of her chunky accessories. “Rings and everything.”

The tennis star, who has finished in the top 50 six times in the past seven years, is also a soap star: in 2008, he played himself on the Spanish television show Los Serrano. Heartthrob role aside (both on TV and on the court), Lopez is perhaps best known as the player who ended Tim Henman’s Wimbledon career: in 2007, the Spaniard beat the Brit in a five-set match in the second round of the grass-court tournament.

The Canadian, whose career-best Grand Slam performance to date is advancing to the fourth round at Roland Garros, has a covetable U.S. Open experience that not all players can lay claim to: “I played on Arthur Ashe,” she says.

Harrison, who qualified for his U.S. Open main-draw debut only days before the tournament began, pulled off a major first-round upset when he beat the No. 15 seed, veteran Ivan Ljubicic, in a dramatic four-set victory. “I’ve always believed in myself,” Harrison said after his win. “I have always had confidence in myself.”

The Swede has always been a viable Grand Slam contender, but his mental game was never there. That changed at the 2009 French Open, when, in the fourth round, Soderling beat No. 1 seed Rafael Nadal—the four-time defending champ who had never lost at Roland Garros. (Soderling ended up losing to Roger Federer in the final.) This year, Soderling fell to nemesis Nadal in the French final and in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. “I’m very happy the way I’ve been playing in the bigger tournaments now for the last year and a half or almost two years,” Soderling says. “I think I showed that I can go very, very deep in every Grand Slam.”

The 2004 U.S. Open champion—and the first Russian to win the title—is one of four U.S. Open women’s winners in this year’s draw. (Kim Clijsters, Venus Williams, and Maria Sharapova are the others.) With 97 career match wins at Grand Slams going into this year’s tournament, Kuznetsova, who also won the 2009 French Open, is a forehand’s shot away from surpassing 100 Grand Slam match wins in the first week of the U.S. Open—a feat only five women currently on the tour have accomplished.

The Argentinean is on the rise: in 2009, he climbed 164 positions from the previous year, one of the biggest jumps of any player in the top 50. Last year he also qualified for the U.S. Open, which was his first Grand Slam.

If Hantuchova drops the first set, don’t count her out: this year on the tour, she and U.S. Open No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki have the best percentage of come-from-behind-matche wins when falling behind, second only to No. 3 seed Venus Williams. Although she’s never been in a Grand Slam singles final, the Slovak has won every Grand Slam mixed-doubles tournament—with a different partner every time.